My Friend, Mr. Muhammad Ismail, while arguing yesterday stated that without separate electorates the Muslims will not get justice and they will not get that representation which they desire. If my Friend, Mr. Muhammad Ismail even at this stage believes in the two-nation theory-communalism-then certainly he will have no place. But there are many persons like Mr. Lari, who told his co-religionists that “even at this stage you are talking of the two-nation theory and separate electorate: please forget all this.” Whatever other views Mr. Lari may hold, I can assure him that so long as there are Muslims like him, they will command confidence of the majority: but if there are persons like Mr. Muhammad Ismail they shall not have the support of the majority community and it is not surprising if he does not get it. In the Bombay Municipal elections, where they have joint electorates, with the support of the majority community many Muslims have come in. If the majority community had not supported the Muslim Candidates in Bombay the said candidates set up by the Congress would not have been elected. This is just an illustration. Dr. Mookherjee from his personal experience said that the majority community in the past has been generous. I say that in the case of my community there has not been any instance where we demanded any special political rights or privileges we stand on our own legs and on merits, we did not demand favours, and the major community of its own accord took good care of our work. Mr. Lari while making a beautiful speech stated that the majority community should be generous fair and reasonable and Dr. Mookherjee stated that they had been. I can tell from my own personal experience as a member of the minority community that the majority community have been really generous. I am not exaggerating when I say that sometimes they have been more than generous. There is nothing to fear from the majority community if we are reasonable, if the minorities are reasonable in their demands and I can assure them that there will be no difficulty in getting a large majority of Muslims returned by the votes of the majority community.
